


Happy Birthday, Shepard

by TheFlamingNymph



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Bar, Birthday Drinks, Colonist (Mass Effect), Control Ending, Memorial Drinks, Multi, Toast, Vanguard (Mass Effect), War Hero (Mass Effect), post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlamingNymph/pseuds/TheFlamingNymph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime after the Reaper War, a toast between friends over the woman they both loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, Shepard

**Author's Note:**

> My first Mass Effect fic. I will say, I'm definitely deep into Mass Effect hell, and I wanna stay here a while.

"You know, she’s waiting for us. At the bar, Canadian lager for you, turian brandy for me.”

Kaidan knew Garrus was trying to comfort him, but even the turian’s normally calm voice was running thicker than usual, sitting as he was with his eyes on the glass in front of him. “Yeah, and what’s she drinking?” He indulged his companion.

“A Tasty Tankard, if I’d hazard a guess. Though, she’s just as likely to down anything the bartender gives her. Did that with ryncol once, didn’t turn out pretty.”

Kaidan choked a laugh into his own glass before taking a large gulp. Sounded like her. “She didn’t back down from anything. Not the geth, not Saren, or the Collectors, not even Reapers.” The glass hit the table with a loud clink.

“She knew what she was doing when she put us back on the Normandy.” His mandibles twitched, swirling the drink in his hand before draining it.

“Of course she did. She never was one for letting other people take the blow when she could.” A thousand times too many, and it was burned into his brain, the flashes of blue and gunfire as she placed herself first against the horde. She drew the fire, it was Kaidan and Garrus who thinned the crowd from afar. A lump was forming in his throat. He hadn’t wanted to be here again, drinking to her memory instead of making memories of drinking with her.

“Yeah, I noticed that. She got pretty surly when we did take blows.” A three-fingered hand traced over the rough skin of his jaw.

“You didn’t get flung over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes... Twice.”

“Well, she was good like that. Too good.”

“Best damned anything this galaxy had to offer.” Kaidan’s voice was harsher now, the lump in his throat turning into a painful knot in his chest.

“Tab’s on us when we see her again. It’ll make up for us keeping her waiting. I don’t think she minds, though.”

“No, I don’t think she does.” He waits until their glasses are full again, raising his and clinking it against the turian’s. “Happy Birthday, Shepard.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my life, kudos make me squee.


End file.
